


Incantation

by FateFeather



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Blood Magic, CCW, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Skinny!Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 09:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13097394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FateFeather/pseuds/FateFeather
Summary: A world where magic is acquired through interactions with others."Steve's spoken to lots of people. He's heard all of their stories, felt all of their desire to win this war. He was a skinny kid with no magic and they were all looking at him like he shouldn't be holding back their plans to achieve that dream."AKA - The Magic AU.





	1. Mooch

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone. I'm back after a 2 year writer's block. 
> 
> I am absolutely looking for people's input, and I most definitely want Constructive Criticism. 
> 
> My brain wouldn't turn off, and now, we all have this. Please help me make this something better.

Steve lies prone in bed, sulking as Bucky comes home early Saturday morning. "You'd promised to be back late last night." The blonde calls out to the other. Bucky laughs as he enters the bedroom. 

"Oh come on. Don't pout, Buddy." The brunette strides over confidently, and touches over Steve's eyes with his palm. Steve feels a soft light over his lids, and the fatigue and pain he'd been feeling lessens a little bit. It's not enough, and Steve is selfish to take from Bucky like this. But every time he tries to connect to people, he finds himself alone.

Bucky yawns, taking his time to undo his shoes. Then he crawls on to Steve's bed, and pushes the blonde out of it. Steve huffs, but goes with the new energy to start taking care of his responsibilities. 

This was their routine. This was their small, peaceful, life. A war raged on overseas getting ever closer to the shore, and Steve was keeping Bucky here simply because he'd die without him. 

As the little blonde cooks a meagre brunch on the stove that Bucky could eat when he woke, Steve decides that today would be the day he tells him to go fight the good fight. He could find his own magic somehow. He shouldn't need to be such a leech.


	2. Vessel

They've already said their goodbyes. The girls didn't even notice Steve taking some extra magic from Bucky as they hugged. He couldn't imagine how he'd be able to touch someone else and gain more. It shouldn't have been so hard for someone like him to make enough meaningful connections to simply get by. He should really figure out why he couldn't hold on to magic in passing, like everybody else could.

"It's the four tries I'm interested in." The German doctor explains softly. He shakes Steve's hand, and nods. Steve doesn't understand what the doctor had felt in their connection, but there was no turning back now. Light had transferred between them, and Steve wanted to know what could happen by harnessing that feeling of Erskine's hope. It was almost as if he'd been given empowerment, and he wanted to charge right into battle. Steve could feel all the good the doctor wanted to achieve, and none of it felt insincere. 

Steve's spoken to lots of people. He's heard all of their stories, felt all of their desire to win this war. He was a skinny kid with no magic and they were all looking at him like he shouldn't hold back their dreams. A part of him reasoned it was okay to want to get out of the way. But that small part of him was swallowed up by the big idea that he could **do** something other than watch on the sidelines.

Peggy hasn't made a connection to him yet either, although, Steve feels stronger when she's nearby. Perhaps like Bucky, her magic ran deeper than she let on to those around her. Maybe, just maybe, she was letting Steve have a little of her power too. He didn't want to keep taking from everyone. He wanted to give back. He wanted to help. He wondered if his magic, when he brushed past people in street, was felt as much as he felt Peggy's desire to fight. If his magic was even strong enough to be considered by those around him.

Erskine had given Steve a star shaped amulet that he insists the other wear during the procedure. They took lots of magic they'd collected from volunteers for the war effort, and contained it in a device that the doctor assures him, will transfer to Steve. 

Steve wonders if the warmth radiating from the thing around his neck was the feeling of thousands of people trying to **do** something just like him.


	3. Sigil

Steve's first breath without pain sends him light headed and he sees the world for the first time in perfect colour. Magic worked miracles in large enough doses. 

The star amulet had shattered and left a strange burn across Steve's chest. He already knows from historical artefact classes that the mark will be there forever, even after his death. As he looks down to see the clean lines of a star burnt into his skin, he finds it's not an unattractive seal he's ended up with.

He was tall. His skin had rejuvenated and enhanced with the magic that filled him to the brim with a power yet to be tested. He feels the will and strength of the people that gave their power for the greater good. All of them cry out for an end to this terrible war. All of them send their strength. He can wield a great power, an untamed magic. He'd been weak this whole time so that now when the lives of so many cried out for something they couldn't name; he could understand it, and name their uncertain description hope. 

It was a large task, but Steve knew he could use their hope to do the right thing. He could fight for them and everyone that needed him to. It was just as he'd always dreamed.


	4. Reservoir

Bucky thinks it must have been at least six months since he tried to have a meaningful conversation. Everyone's power feels forced, like everyone's tapping into a bone dry well, hoping for just a drop more. It tainted all of their natural abilities, and made it that much harder to gain the magic they needed to carry on fighting with all they had. 

All they would need is one night at the very least to sleep and eat and get a little magic from the local people. They were always happy to provide what they could. 

Bucky sighs. 

He thinks about the airy aura of flirtatious women. That was a wonderful feeling. They would place their hands on his chest and giggle at his awful jokes simply because he was a looker. The magic that flowed around them then would almost dance as it transferred to Bucky's being. He would give back of course, a playful wisp that fell like fine rain around the girls he flirted back with. It never felt like the whisper soft energy he lent to Steve. These girls had power, and then some. Steve's magic flowed from him like body heat, at least, when he had enough spare it did. Bucky liked to lean in close when he could, and soak up that feeling just as much as the pretty women's. 

It had been far too long since he felt that free. Now what magic he had couldn't be wasted on rainfall patterns. It went to his eyes to scout the area, his fingers to pull the trigger, his chest to slow his heart. Giving and taking magic in this world was as easy as breathing. Nobody questioned what would happen if it was all gone.

He isn't sure why he hasn't dropped dead yet from the exhaustion of it all. It often feels like he should but somehow he still has enough to see through one more day. He tries not to think about the men that couldn't make it through basic in the end. How would they make do if those of them that endured lost the war?

They're all sent out for a mission to Aleppo. He wonders if he'll recover enough strength and enough magic for his sight by taking a nap.


	5. Demand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be advised: Blood. Body horror.
> 
> This chapter can be skipped if needed.

"Bitte hör auf. We have no more to give." Pleads a father in failing health. His daughter lies prone. His wife is already dead. 

"Come now..." A man rumoured to be the Red Skull leans in closer, though there is nothing red about him. 

His hand presses forcefully against the back of the father's bowed head. "You _want_ to give it to me." The man presses hard enough to dig into the flesh of the father's scalp. " _All of it._ " He whispers. 

With eyes fixed on his family, crying, begging for it to stop, to be freed, the father lifts his hands and holds them up. 

Magic and blood mist into the air, snaking around the Red Skull's hand. The man ignores the pitiful cries, smiling as the magic continues to pour out of him like a river gushing to join the ocean.

The blood magic forbidden for generations cuts deep circles under the Red Skull's eyes. His body would not contain an entire city yet. He needed the final shards of the amulet Erskine took away from him. Angrily he walks over the body of the father. His body was already flaking away without a seal to hold his physical body together. 

The H.Y.D.R.A division leave a family dead in the snow, not caring enough to bury them. The platoon the Red Skull leads march on towards the next village. For now, he would have to keep taking in small amounts to keep his plan under the radar. When he is ready to cast aside humanity, he will show his true face to the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to Google Translate: Bitte hör auf - Please stop
> 
> If you know German, I'll make whatever changes you think should replace it.


	6. 32557038

"I've told you... Everything." Bucky's head lolls to one side, eyes sliding away to fix on a spot on the wall. "My name. My rank. Where we're stationed. There's nothing else I know. Nothing else I can tell you." He doens't quite beg yet but he's starting to sound like he ought to be. 

The Skull, introduced for this face-to-face as Johann, looks at Bucky with some deep unsettling thought crossing his expression. He's already drained what most normal men would yield to him. But this soldier doesn't like to fear him on rumour alone, and he has plenty of magic left in him to still talk with sense. Johann smiles, the edges of his mouth cracking. 

A small man writes everything down. Rounded glasses delicate against the harsh backdrop of his dirty office.

Bucky's attention is brought back to Johann putting his hand over his eyes, fingers digging painfully into his temples. "You will _keep talking_." The infamous Skull hushes over Bucky's heavy, exhausted, breaths. 

Magic and blood spray mist into the air.

Bucky finds to his shock that he has air in his lungs to still scream.


	7. Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be advised: More mentions of blood, death, and general not good things.

The rail snaps and Bucky falls wordlessly but loudly with the bar sliding from his outstretched fingers. 

He hits the ground. 

He comes alive enough to scream in pain in a dark parody of the hell he's already suffered.

He curls up in the snow, crying out for help until his throat closes over and he can't make any more sounds. He refuses to look at his arm. He already knows from the pain and the amount of blood that it's gone. 

He looks up to the grey skies, regretting now that he never mastered magic enough to fly. He always assumed that was a myth anyway.

Between sluggishly bleeding out, and trying to stay awake, he eats the snow from the ground just to hang on a little more. He can't move. He hasn't been able to since the fall. He wonders why he keeps _trying_ to eat. 

Between sluggishly bleeding out, and waiting to die, he forgets why he's dying out here at all. All he knows is that he's going to die. He knows it wasn't happening quickly enough for his liking. He daren't look at his shoulder to find out if it's gotten infected.

" **He's still alive.** " Shouts a soldier dressed in black.

Footsteps come closer. Someone lifts him. He feels like he could cry with joy.

"Sargent Barnes...?" 

Bucky focuses enough to see the smiling face of Arnim Zola, and wishes he had already died.


	8. Amber

"That's not ice." Mentions his second in command. 

"No." Director Fury confirms.

"So he's been like this--" She's hesitant and he doesn't blame her. This wasn't her usual routine.

"For 70 years. We're hoping that by keeping him here the sensory elements of his magic will pick up that there's no more threat to his life, and free him from this... Crystal." It sounds so simple when he says it, but even reading it from Rogers' chart makes it sound like an impossible thing a child wished for. Fury sets the chart back down and looks at the symbol the world had come to know as Captain America. 

"If it doesn't?" Maria asks, doubtful about the cocoon disappearing on it's own as if blowing dust from an antique.

"Then we just picked up the strangest relic in all of existence." Fury admits with a resigned sigh. He motions for them both to leave. Captain America wasn't the only pressing matter today, and he wasn't going anywhere soon. 

The crystal is perfectly smooth around Steve Rogers as he lies encased. 

A fracture no thicker than a hair splinters the surface.


	9. Renovate

The Asset is dragged from his cryo-chamber. He finds his feet, and is given a new type of gun in the training arena. He never usually had to be here any more. Not after the last set of Soldiers' went rogue. They feared him, but feared he would act out more-so. 

They kept him away from places where there was an incident. He wasn't supposed to get ideas or reminders about them.

"Fire." The handler commands. The Asset aims at the test dummy directly across from his position and shoots it in the head. The Asset receives an electric shock to the lower end of his spine. There was a reason they used this handler with him more than average. It hurt to be shocked more than any other pain he'd been subjected to. He assumed it was because of all the metal fused to his skin. They didn't need a crystal clear reason to hurt him.

" _I complied_." The Asset growls with a hint of frustration as he shakes off the feeling of fire through his veins. "Parameters were to shoot." He receives another bolt to the ribs this time for talking back. He barely cares any more about the pain they cause him even if still stings worse than burns or cuts. It was predictable, comforting almost. 

"Fire at that." They point to a person, hooded, sobbing. The Asset realises now why they shocked him. How had he not heard that racket? He aims again, and shoots the person dead. The body crumples. He expects no praise for getting it right that time.

"I fixed my mistake." The Asset states. He studies the gun, turning it as he looks down the sights. The idea to pull the trigger on himself doesn't occur to him as much as it used to. "Why is the roster being changed?" He asks, needing to know if there was a new mission that required a different skill set. He shouldn't be used outside of his usual capacity. He tended to perform badly when that happens. He looks down at his gloved, flesh hand. For some reason he feels sharper now. His senses tune his field of awareness to everything in the room rather than just himself, the handler, and the gun. It was like reading with glasses after squinting at letters for so long trying to form words.

"Didn't you feel it?" The handler asks. This time the Asset's not being electrocuted for not answering right away, so he learns that there's a reason he's in the training field. He's a guinea pig again. They needed him to react to whatever that feeling was just now. He searches within himself, and speaks without thinking.

"I felt something like a wash after having my hands in dirt." He frowns at the stronger magic user. "But I only fired like you told me to." They smile at him. He'd ask what was so good about that, except he was trying to remember when he'd put his hands in dirt. He was trying to remember that clean feeling. He wanted more of it. 

"It worked." They say with a happiness that puts a sour taste in the Asset's mouth. 

The gun is taken away. Water is given. He uses it to wash his flesh hand but he already knows this isn't the feeling he's chasing. He'd thought about a stream with both his flesh hands scrubbed raw in the depths of it. He doesn't remember anything else but that.

The Asset is taken back to the chair: Wiped clean.


	10. Connected

The world had changed so much that Steve felt almost happy he was getting into an old fashioned fist fight. 

They match blow for blow. Punches Steve knows will knock people out barely wind the other. Muscle memory kicks trained into The Asset to shatter rib-cages are deflected with enhanced speed. As they fight there's a disappointment in the blonde that this guy is too dangerous to spar with after this is over. 

Assuming he wins first. 

Both of them rely on raw magical power that's enhanced by what they've been able to obtain from the people they've connected with. Steve wonders how a ruthless assassin like this one has managed to get so strong. He didn't think someone like this could form such a binding connection to the people around him. He worries as he blocks a staggering kick if this person had been shown how to use blood magic. 

It shouldn't be possible, given that the secret died with the Skull and this fighter was in their prime.

It could of course be something to do with that nasty looking weapon strapped to the assassin's back. It appeared to be a mix of unethical ancient research and cutting edge technology. It could have been the seal that kept the assassin's physical body from crumbling away under the pressure of the fight. It was most definitely the gun that had shot Fury through without a care in the world for the body armour he wore that night. Steve makes a grab for it but can't reach. He has to adjust, and ends up going on the offensive to knock this killer out. It'd be easier to confiscate that thing if he did. 

In a struggle to defeat the fighter, Steve grabs the mask that hides the fighter's identity, an item he assumed was an enhancer for that sheer strength and brutality. He rips it from the killer expecting his face to slide off with it. Forbidden magic left a nasty tell.

But the mask comes away clean, and drops to the floor along with the dark haired fighter. 

The assassin gets to his feet with space between them, staring at Steve with no malice at all. Steve finally looks at the man behind the 'ghost' ego. The darkness of the Winter Soldier laid out under the light of day. 

It dawns on the Captain that this man was in need of his help. The thousands of lives he had touched all pointed him to that one conclusion. 

It couldn't have happened otherwise. This man would never have attacked Steve if there was any other way. 

Steve's mouth falls open as he gapes at the person before him, waiting for the resemblance to fade and the fight to continue. He sucks in breath, but hardly enough to keep fighting. 

"Bucky?"


End file.
